Once a firebrand in the ANC Youth League, an untouchable co-founder in the EFF, to being unceremoniously demoted from Secretary General of the MK party and snubbed from its parliamentary list just 10 months since joining, the life and times of Floyd Shivambu tell the story of a political modus operandi manned by authoritarians, gatekeeping henchmen, and connected scions who would wish to run things like a spaza shop or family imbizo.
The word of the central figure – whether the patriarch or the CIC who clearly does not take kindly to being challenged – goes, and constitutionalism or party consensus are haram. It is a party in name mostly, in the main it’s seemingly a private or family affair where those who don’t go along with the nostra are purged or told to watch it! Or at least this is the pervasive framing of the MK party.
Praised as a sharpwitted policymaker, a keen scholar of both pan-africanism and Soviet-styled leftism, Shivambu was catapulted to MK national organiser shortly after joining. The appointment was at the time widely said would give jargon to the party’s socialist-leaning so-called radical economic transformation rhetoric. This was, you’ll remember, a party that went hobnobbing into the last election with something that looked more like a campus flyer than a policy document or manifesto. And Shivambu was the guy who’d conceptulised the EFF’s founding policies and pathos.
Floyd might have unobtrusively gone about his business in MK except he allegedly started asking questions around money and in no time, his cleaning up of house was fated to have him stepping on people’s toes. Especially the manicured ones of Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, who is turbulently wont to flight her battles publicly on Twitter. The country was soon to see that things were never going to go well between the new recruit and Zuma’s beloved daughter.
And Malema, Shivambu’s former head in the EFF, who was visibly distraught following the latter’s resignation, could soon be seen grinning more than usual. For publicly calling the SG a mafikizolo, a newcomer, Zuma-Sambudla was ultimately forced to apogise. She did, except only to her father and not Shivambu, the subject of her tirade.
This is not only the the party that has opened the window to the ghosts of State Capture’s past and Zuma’s Stalingrad attempts in the courts, but it has done so in the full glare of the country including Shivambu. Everyone from the BS-er Carl Niehaus, the former public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to Judge John Hlophe, it was a formation evidently to repay old favours, settle old scores, and to perhaps rig the Constitution so that the patriarch might never have his day in court.
Self-preservation was its founding premise and many of the new recruits were either deadwood with nowhere else to go or mere lackeys who could be relied upon to simply nod along, no questions asked. Shivambu, however, is a stalwart of the old game, used to taking initiative, calling the shots and making his post-graduate qualifications count. He was never going to be reigned-in so easily. Nor could he honestly say he didn’t know that Zuma is famously known to live up to his name – Gedleyihlekisa; the one who knocks you while laughing with you.
Thus perhaps his unsanctioned presser last week was an outlet for both the boiling disgruntlement and personal shame. It was also perhaps his way of telling his new boss to do his worst. Coming from an ANC and EFF where internal matters are always ironed out behind closed doors and taking a united party line is the order’s mantra, running to the press is a frowned-upon rogue move worthy of nothing short of a dismissal.
Outside of dragging the party for alleged theft and drug use was probably his way of avoiding resignation and preferring to be fired. By the time he indicated he would be doing a roadshow to hear how the grassroots felt about a possible new party even though he was still an MK member, he had only fallen short of openly saying his days in the Spear of the Nation were numbered.
He’s since been actively busy on social media calling on contributions as to the sort of party South Africans want as well as fishing for volunteers. Nothing untoward about seeking a fresh start, but one is compelled to ponder on the character and de/merits of the man who would invariably be knocking on our doors asking for votes.
Sifting through his utterances on various platforms, one is not sure what to make of Shivambu. Is he a flip-flopping clone to Malema or just an upright guy caught up in an unscrupulous political environment. Is he really an articulator of principle or just a leech to self-preservation and saying whatever needs to be said for a quick, dishonest shortcuts?
Seven months ago on the SMWX podcast he was singing Zuma’s praises. He felt it his duty to ‘change a wrong narrative which for some reason we’d fallen into … where we were wrongly mobilised against president Zuma that he is the most corrupt leader, there [was] state capture and all sorts of nonsensical characterisation of the period where he was head of state.’
It was during the commission of enquiry into state capture where Shivambu would undergo a change of heart. ‘There is no wrongdoing which was pointed on president Zuma in the whole enquiry. Zero!’ Instead, to Shivambu, the whole exercise was clearly an attempt at the ‘bastardisation and criminalization of progressive left politics globally.’ Just as they did with Lula of Brazil, ‘the global west and imperialist forces seek to collaborate with locals to try undermine the legitimacy of such a leader.’
As a result, he has no respect for the commission’s chair, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, who by his reckoning, was merely doing the bidding of white capital by lynching a son of the soil.
To him, Zuma was a champion trying to ensure energy security, introduced free education up to varsity level, was engendered to progressive politics and as far back as October 2023 in a gathering of various parties ‘gave a very interesting diagnosis of what are the problems of our politics in South Africa.’ In it Zuma noted that the ANC was entirely at the whims of white monopoly capital, who were going to force a coalition between the party and the DA. To Shivambu, this was an utter betrayal of the revolution, a throwback to colonial-era injustice where educated black men were pleading for a seat at the table of white masters.
In this he believed devoutly but in the presser he expressed that perhaps not all those who talked this faith actually walked it. The reason for his removal as SG, he says, was that he supposedly wanted to overthrow Zuma. To this effect, an ‘extremely bizarre’ intelligence report was produced accusing him of ‘accumulating supernatural powers to make people disappear.’ On top of that absurdity, his move to parliament was snubbed based on another report acussing him of seeking to use his position there to again take power from Zuma.
Zuma, he went on, ‘is surrounded by political scoundrels who opportunistically use his kindness, sometimes gullibility, that comes with age,’ to mislead him so they can plunder MK coffers. R7million a month disappears into their hands he said. As for going back to the EFF? Not a chance. They’re a cult with ‘no space for ideological reasoning and there’s no self-respecting person who can join both the ANC and the EFF.’
His initial response when recently approached by people who were encouraging him to start a new party was to tell them that you can’t start a party as individuals. The thing to do was to work with existing parties, failing which was to ask whether South Africans were keen on the idea of a new party. Hence the presser was an opportunity to ‘announce that we are going to be convening the process of consulting the people of South Africa on a formation of a political movement that will be through representative (sic) of the people of South Africa.’
‘I have not resigned from uMkhonto weSizwe and I’ll never resign,’ he said, and if listening to people on the ground was a dismissable offence, he’d cross that bridge when he got to it. He rejected, profusely, any suggestion of tribalism in the MK or Julius Malema categorising Zuma as somebody who uses people. In fact, Shivambu references Kgalema Motlanthe’s observation that Zuma’s one shortcoming is that of sometimes agreeing to decisions outside of formal party structures.
This week Shivambu will be announcing the team that will comprise his roadshow. In the coming weeks, he’ll be criss-crossing the length and breadth of the country. The man who is often mentioned in the looting of VBS Mutual Bank,, presents himself as a selfless, committed revolutionary in the mould of a Sankara or Guevara.
If we take him at his word, he’s not in it for positions, power or self-aggrandisement. The flashy cars, or his associations with wealthy tycoons who throw lavish parties, and, as an ex high-ranking member of an EFF known to indulge in crass displays of materialism, Floyd would have us believe that he’s not about the bling or boondoggle.
He’s still an adherant to the dream of economic freedom in our lifetime, despite whatever the papers might say. At this, social media are dubiously LMAO, one Politicsweb contributor has long taken to calling him Fraud and all that’s left is to see whether the people on the street will agree that what South Africa needs most now is yet another political party.
One thing is sure, given the unemployment crisis, if his excursion brings with it packed lunches and cooldrink, there will be scores of the jobless lining up for a free lunch. Whether come 2029 they’ll be lining up to give him their vote, we’ll, that might be stretching it a little.